Quebec to let other provinces’ goods in
Quebec is proposing a bill to let other provinces’ goods in, in accord with the overall plan to reduce trade barriers between provinces.
But what about French labels and so on? There’s nothing about that in this brief report, which says “goods from other provinces and territories may be ‘commercialized, used or consumed’ in Quebec without further requirements.”
CE 18:30 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Products sold in Canada have to have labelling in both English and French so I don’t think it will be too much of a problem for all but the most artisanal of products.
Kevin 19:23 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Such as musical instruments and accessories…
mare 20:32 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Isn’t there a Quebec tariff on ice cream and cheese?
Kate 21:28 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Quebec makes some terrific, if expensive, artisanal cheese these days. I wouldn’t like that to be undermined by industrial quantities of cheddar from Ontario.
Ian 23:02 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
Ontario has a very big artisanal cheese offering, too, which should come as no.surprise.
Nicholas 23:35 on 2025-05-30 Permalink
CE, not everything needs to be in both languages. For prepackaged non-food consumer products, “The product identity must be shown in English and French. Non-mandatory label information, such as directions for use and promotional statements, do not need to be bilingual; however, you are encouraged to include such information in both languages.” per the Competition Bureau. For food there are more stringent rules, where things have to be bilingual in most cases, but there are a few exceptions, and, “In general information on labels and in advertisements that is not part of mandatory information (such as recipes on a can of soup or games on a box of cereal) is not subject to bilingual requirements at the federal level, although manufacturers and importers are encouraged to present such information bilingually.” There are also different rules for some other categories, like drugs, and non-consumer products generally only need labelling in one language. That’s why Quebec has its own, stricter law.
Kate, Quebec does make some great artisanal cheeses, and I don’t think many people buying those would be switching to mass produced Ontario cheddar. We might get some good artisanal Ontario cheeses, but presumably Ontario will get some good Quebec artisanal cheeses too. More choice is great.
MarcG 07:50 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
More choice is great but it also means more emissions moving products around.
dwgs 09:16 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
AFAIK Saputo is the largest cheese / dairy producer in Canada so those artisanal cheeses already compete against the biggest of the big boys. Also, surely those are two different markets. We buy mozzarella from Super C but for real cheese we’ll go to Fromagerie Atwater, Hamel, or the little goat cheese people at Jean Talon market.
MarcG, I don’t think that having products from other provinces available means that people will consume more but might be more likely to choose Canadian products over American for example.
MarcG 11:28 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
I wasn’t suggesting that people will consume more. Continuing with artisinal cheese as an example: if you currently buy 10 cheeses a month and they’re all made in Quebec, and after these changes you buy 5 Quebec cheeses and 5 Ontario cheeses, and somebody in Ontario does the exact same thing, we’ve now transported 5 cheeses out of province and 5 cheeses into the province that wouldn’t have happened before, despite consumption being the same. Does that make sense?
Orr 11:52 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
Besides being a giant industrial producer of mass-market cheese, Saputo also has a fine cheese division, made in their Plesisville factory. Several brands you might think of as artisanal in the grocery store are from here. Any cheese that, at the end of the aging process, is underweight by a few grams is sold in the factory store there at *incredible* prices.
That said, I also appreciate/adore/can’t get enough of Quebec’s many top-rated, world-class prize winning cheeses from small producers. There are a lot of them. #DeathByCheese is a risk I live with daily.
Anyhoo, breaking down the interprovincial trade barriers is a noble goal, but let’s not be fooled into thinking Quebec is removing it’s most popular non-tariff trade barrier aka language laws. Labour mobility into Quebec is severely restricted by these same laws. That isn’t changing anytime soon/ever.
Nicholas 12:01 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
MarcG, there’s a photo that goes around every so often of a fruit cup of pears that were grown in Argentina, packaged in Thailand and sold in America (I think NYC). It turns out the carbon emissions from transport of that cup are less than driving two blocks in your car to the store. It could also replace cheese from France, which have larger emissions (yes, I know that’s not happening, which shows how much people care). I’m not saying this swap of cheese would have no effect, but it’s miniscule, and if we’re really worried about food transportation emissions we should look at fresh fruit transported by plane. And, of course, the emissions created by growing food are way, way, way higher than transportation.
dwgs 12:06 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
We can split that hair as finely as you want to. What if the artisanal cheese I buy from Ontario is made in Glengarry (https://glengarryfinecheese.com/collections/all)? That’s an hour’s less travel time than from the townships.
MarcG 12:29 on 2025-05-31 Permalink
Yeah I thought about that geographical point too, and don’t have any real numbers on emissions from transport, so fair nuff, I just thought it was worth mentioning. Not sure if any of this affects alcohol but if it does, craft beer nerds are going to rejoice not having to organize private imports through the SAQ just to get their hands on stuff brewed next door.